Arunima Krishna

Associate Professor, Department of Mass Communication, Advertising, and Public Relations at the College of Communication

Arunima Krishna is an associate professor of Mass Communication, Advertising, and Public Relations at the Boston University College of Communication. She is an Associate Director at the Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability.

Dr. Krishna’s research focuses on understanding public perceptions of controversial social issues. Drawing from communication, public relations, business, and social psychology literatures, her scholarship explores how publics respond to and communicate about controversy-causing social problems, as well as factors shaping their perceptions of such issues. The situational theory of problem solving (STOPS) forms a foundational theoretical framework in her scholarship, and her work has helped advance communication theory by integrating the STOPS with consumer and social psychology literature, social identity theory, and narrative persuasion scholarship.

Her research so far has focused on two broad categories of controversial social issues: (1) issues stemming from questions related to science and the veracity of scientific fact, including climate change denial and vaccine hesitancy, and (2) issues stemming from questions of morality and justice, such as workplace discrimination and corporate misconduct.